But really, the important point about parallel arguments is that you can’t pick one of the two bad examples, argue that it’s bad, and then ride the momentum from that rejection into a rejection of the whole theory.
This is a recipe for Gish Gallops. I’ve seen lists of 100 arguments against evolution. By your reasoning, I would not be able to say “that person opposes evolution for poor reasons” unless I’ve addressed all 100 arguments.
Or to put it another way, treating parallel arguments as strong creates incentives that lead people to act in ways (producing Gish Gallops) that produce weaker parallel arguments.
While I agree that the original post does invite Gish Gallops, I think it’s still reasonable to say “that person opposes evolution for poor reasons” if you’ve checked the first two of their hundred reasons and they’re both terrible. Even if there was a fantastically good argument against evolution in that list somewhere, that person is still endorsing many poor reasons and appears unable to distinguish the good from the bad.
It is true that you can’t reasonably say “none of these are good arguments” until you’ve investigated all of them, but you can reasonably argue that you have strong enough evidence that this person is so bad at evaluating arguments that it’s not worth your time to investigate the rest.
you can reasonably argue that you have strong enough evidence that this person is so bad at evaluating arguments that it’s not worth your time to investigate the rest.
Unfortunately, this is sub-optimal from a game theory perspective. It results in information hiding, and can result in arbitrarily-incorrect views as a result.
Suppose that everyone knows that you stop reading after the first two wrong arguments you see.
Now suppose that there are two common and reasonably well-regarded arguments that every knowledgeable person on the subject knows, and as well each person knows two novel arguments of their own devising that they know are likely incorrect.
The optimal for each person trying to convince someone of the premise, knowing only that the person stops reading after two wrong arguments, is to give them the two common arguments and nothing else.
So you see the same two common arguments repeated a thousand times, instead of the thousand novel arguments. And you miss that ten of the novel arguments are actually correct.
(This is very akin to strategic voting in some ways.)
(This still “works” even if, say, 50% of the population has heard the common arguments before...)
An agent wanting to search for truth with bounded resources is better off looking somewhere that isn’t a known cesspit of bad evidence presented as if it were good.
That aside, I still don’t think your hypothetical world captures the essence of the proposal. The Gish Gallop is primarily an asymmetric resource exhaustion strategy. Evaluating the first(*) couple of arguments to judge the quality of the evidence is a defense against that strategy. If they’re only presenting their own two arguments then this isn’t a Gish Gallop, and the defense is inapplicable.
It seems to me that a better strategy would be to first quickly check that they do in fact already know the standard not-obviously-wrong arguments or other evidence, and then proceed with your own information. If they don’t already know it, then presenting the well known information first is a good thing. If they do know it, then you now both know that you’re working from a common base before starting on the new information of unknown value. In both cases your situation is stronger.
(*) They need not be the first strictly, but shouldn’t be cherry-picked. Reliably choosing the first few makes it obvious that they’re not cherry-picked, and establishes a useful norm of communicating strongest information first.
Right. The 100 arguments the person gives aren’t 100 parallel arguments in favor of them having good reasons to believe evolution is false, for exactly the reason you give. So my reasoning doesn’t stop you from concluding that they have no good reason to disbelieve.
And, they are still 100 arguments in parallel that evolution is false, and my reasoning in the post correctly implies that you can’t read five of them, see that they aren’t good arguments, and conclude that evolution is true. (That conclusion requires a good argument in favor of evolution, not a bad one against it.)
And, they are still 100 arguments in parallel that evolution is false, and my reasoning in the post correctly implies that you can’t read five of them, see that they aren’t good arguments, and conclude that evolution is true.
But that isn’t the conclusion that I’m trying to make.
my reasoning doesn’t stop you from concluding that they have no good reason to disbelieve.
That one is the conclusion that I’m trying to make.
But if those don’t count as 100 parallel arguments because each bad argument speaks to the guy’s incompetence at evaluating arguments, well… someone’s bad argument always speaks to his incompetence at evaluating arguments. Every single list of arguments is like that. So the exception then swallows the rule and there is no such thing as a true list of parallel arguments.
This is a recipe for Gish Gallops. I’ve seen lists of 100 arguments against evolution. By your reasoning, I would not be able to say “that person opposes evolution for poor reasons” unless I’ve addressed all 100 arguments.
Or to put it another way, treating parallel arguments as strong creates incentives that lead people to act in ways (producing Gish Gallops) that produce weaker parallel arguments.
While I agree that the original post does invite Gish Gallops, I think it’s still reasonable to say “that person opposes evolution for poor reasons” if you’ve checked the first two of their hundred reasons and they’re both terrible. Even if there was a fantastically good argument against evolution in that list somewhere, that person is still endorsing many poor reasons and appears unable to distinguish the good from the bad.
It is true that you can’t reasonably say “none of these are good arguments” until you’ve investigated all of them, but you can reasonably argue that you have strong enough evidence that this person is so bad at evaluating arguments that it’s not worth your time to investigate the rest.
Unfortunately, this is sub-optimal from a game theory perspective. It results in information hiding, and can result in arbitrarily-incorrect views as a result.
Suppose that everyone knows that you stop reading after the first two wrong arguments you see.
Now suppose that there are two common and reasonably well-regarded arguments that every knowledgeable person on the subject knows, and as well each person knows two novel arguments of their own devising that they know are likely incorrect.
The optimal for each person trying to convince someone of the premise, knowing only that the person stops reading after two wrong arguments, is to give them the two common arguments and nothing else.
So you see the same two common arguments repeated a thousand times, instead of the thousand novel arguments. And you miss that ten of the novel arguments are actually correct.
(This is very akin to strategic voting in some ways.)
(This still “works” even if, say, 50% of the population has heard the common arguments before...)
An agent wanting to search for truth with bounded resources is better off looking somewhere that isn’t a known cesspit of bad evidence presented as if it were good.
That aside, I still don’t think your hypothetical world captures the essence of the proposal. The Gish Gallop is primarily an asymmetric resource exhaustion strategy. Evaluating the first(*) couple of arguments to judge the quality of the evidence is a defense against that strategy. If they’re only presenting their own two arguments then this isn’t a Gish Gallop, and the defense is inapplicable.
It seems to me that a better strategy would be to first quickly check that they do in fact already know the standard not-obviously-wrong arguments or other evidence, and then proceed with your own information. If they don’t already know it, then presenting the well known information first is a good thing. If they do know it, then you now both know that you’re working from a common base before starting on the new information of unknown value. In both cases your situation is stronger.
(*) They need not be the first strictly, but shouldn’t be cherry-picked. Reliably choosing the first few makes it obvious that they’re not cherry-picked, and establishes a useful norm of communicating strongest information first.
Right. The 100 arguments the person gives aren’t 100 parallel arguments in favor of them having good reasons to believe evolution is false, for exactly the reason you give. So my reasoning doesn’t stop you from concluding that they have no good reason to disbelieve.
And, they are still 100 arguments in parallel that evolution is false, and my reasoning in the post correctly implies that you can’t read five of them, see that they aren’t good arguments, and conclude that evolution is true. (That conclusion requires a good argument in favor of evolution, not a bad one against it.)
But that isn’t the conclusion that I’m trying to make.
That one is the conclusion that I’m trying to make.
But if those don’t count as 100 parallel arguments because each bad argument speaks to the guy’s incompetence at evaluating arguments, well… someone’s bad argument always speaks to his incompetence at evaluating arguments. Every single list of arguments is like that. So the exception then swallows the rule and there is no such thing as a true list of parallel arguments.